How would you approach this? Am I out of line?

Background: My 7 year old goes to public school here in Georgia. Wednesday, there was extreme weather- more than 1.000 homes were lost to twisters in the northern most part of the state. However, the National Weather Service had issued Tornado Warnings/Watches for our part of the state as well. Per safety procedures, the children were not allowed to be realsed from the school building until the watches/warning was lifted.

Yesterday, there was another school shooting, this time right down the road from where we live. At Price Middle School, another student shot a 14 year old boy. While the boy survived, it scares me even more than usual. At least before, it was far away from home.

I have always felt my child was safe at school. I have always felt that the school would do what they could to protect him.

However, with the state of the world, both from man-made and natural causes, I feel as though more communication than ever is needed with parents and families.

I feel my son's school is failing. I feel as though they are failing with communication. Wednesday, I had more than I could handle when my son arrived home more than 1.5 hours after school was "let out" with no communication with the school. The school board communicated with all the parents in the county more than 2 hours after the Elementary school students were supposed to be let out of school.

I wrote the Prinicpal the following email.

Dear ********-

I am very frustrated. I feel like there is a total breakdown in communication from the school to the parents.

I understand why the field trip was cancelled and I appreciate that the school acted on the side of caution to keep the students safe, however, I also feel like parents should have been informed of the cancellation when it occurred. There is a need for parents to know where their child is. If I believe my child is at a certain location, and an emergency happens in that location. I am going to be stressing out that my child is hurt. Only to find out, hours later, that my child was not ever in that location. It is extremely important for me, as a parent, to know where my child is.

Also, the school bus has been late, several times the past few weeks, again with no communication. There is no notice, no phone call, no email sent that there are problems with the bus. Again, this has been an on going issue and it has left me standing in the cold and wet for more than 30 minutes at a time.

I know that school cannot be let out during a tornado warning, and again, I am thankful for you keeping my child safe, but when school is going to be let out late, I expect a phone call or email informing me of the situation.

The county put out a phone call yesterday to all parents in the county at 4PM, hours after the incidents happened. This is unacceptable. Parents need to informed when events are occurring. It takes just a few moments to send a mass email or put out a phone tree. The county has the technology for these things to occur.

There has been yet, another, school shooting- this time in our own backyard. I am worried for my child's safety and the lack of communication from the school is not helping my anxiety about this. I cannot be an informed parent and help the school to the best of my abilities without communication.

What can we do to help this situation? How can we communicate in a better, more helpful way? I have spoken to many other parents about this and know that I am not the only one who feels this way.

Thank you,

****************

Today, when I was picking my son up from school. I saw the prinicpal. He informed me that he had gotten my email. However, he still has not said anything back to me. I feel as though an email back or a meeting is in order.

I am upset about this to the point where I have spoken to my boyfriend about pulling my son out of school and homeschooling him!

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